I wrote a typical Chloe diatribe on my Facebook (posted below) and will probably read the article again and think more on it — I want to give a disclaimer first and point out that I agree with mostly all of what the author is saying: I work with a community of men that has fundamentally changed my own feminism because I FEEL so much better now what it is like to be a poor (and/or) black/Hispanic man, at least in urban Westchester/NYC communities. And I do not feel like these men are necessarily “my enemies” anymore — while a lot of them do horrible things (including rape and murder, oh god no) and should be held accountable, I wonder how many of them would make the same decisions were it not for the same system that encourages patriarchy in the first place? Anyway. But my main thing is that it reminds me of this blog I read awhile back about Schrodinger’s rapist.. lemme see… here it is!

Like this:

These illuminating infographics from Mother Jones sparked a deeply personal discussion here at Mislabeled this weekend. Initially, we were talking about just what it says – IT’S THE INEQUALITY, STUPID! Am I surprised that the 10 richest members of Congress all voted for the Bush tax cuts? Nope. Am I slightly more shocked that, as an entrenched member of the bottom 20 percent of this country’s earner’s, I’m losing about $5,000 a year in taxes that I would have held onto if the growth rate had remained stable, while the top one percent gained nearly $600,000 in the same period?! Well, yea, that one gave me some pause.

Look at the graphs. They speak for themselves. I’d love to see a discussion happen in the comments below about your impressions, thoughts, and experiences along these lines.

What I’d like to bring up more, though, is the issue of class. There’s been a lot of discussion in recent years about the “disappearing” middle class. While the commentators go back and forth on what’s happening in light of the 2008 recession, a lot of folks failed to notice that all our talk about the middle class doesn’t define who those people actually are! A few studies were done, and things got interesting. Continue reading →

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I had the opportunity to see Fright Night this weekend when I was in Upstate NY visiting my mother.

TOTAL DISCLAIMER: Because I was in upstate NY visiting my mother, I obviously had to go to one of the less than 700 remaining drive-in movie theaters (don’t worry, I’m not such a fanatic that I knew this offhand; I did a respectable amount of googling to arrive at that conclusion) in the U.S. And because I was at one of the less than 700 remaining drive-in movie theaters in the U.S., I was also in one of the least-maintained movie theaters I’ve ever been to, and it was less than possible on several occasions to even see what was going on on the screen.

BE THAT AS IT MAY.

I was surprised to enjoy this movie. All in all, I thought it was entertaining. The first half an hour was a collection of grueling “awkward scenes where adults write what they imagine teenagers talk about” scenes, but once (*SPOILER ALERT!*) Continue reading →

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The New York Times recently published an article about a new trend emerging – predictive policing. In brief: a computer program has been developed and is being implemented in Santa Cruz to predict locations and blocks of time where certain crimes are most likely to occur. It sounds like the system is evidence based: that is to say, based on an input of data on crime events in the city in the past, it spits out a sort of extrapolation on what might happen in the future, and when. And evidently, they made an arrest utilizing that system already. Continue reading →

Like this:

If I get mansplained to one more time this week (yes it’s only Tuesday) I will be forced to Hold Fucking Forth on mansplaining and some may know my tirades are less fun than reading eloquent, witty, and poignant remarks from People Smarter Than Me on the Internet. Behold, Men Explain Things to Me; Facts Didn’t Get in Their Way, by Rebecca Solnit.

…billions of women must be out there on this six-billion-person planet being told that they are not reliable witnesses to their own lives, that the truth is not their property, now or ever.

and even better, because I love anyone that refers to a penis as a willie: Continue reading →